Juckes and the Rain in Maine

Juckes stated:

MM2003 criticise MBH1998 on many counts, some related to deficiencies in the description of the data used and possible irregularities in the data itself. These issues have been largely resolved in Mann et al. (2004) [the Corrigendum].

Did Juckes carry out any due diligence in order to make the latter statement? Because I’m not sure what issues were “resolved” in the Corrigendum. Today I’ll mention one amusing issue that definitely wasn’t resolved in the Corrigendum.

In MM03, we reported that the instrumental precipitation record for the New England gridcell used in MBH98 did not match any historical data from the area or from the citation, but did match historical precipitation from Paris, France. (“The rain in Maine falls mainly in the Seine”). In experimenting subsequent to MM03, I determined that the MBH precipitation series assigned to the South Carolina gridcell matched a series from Toulouse, France. I was unable to match the MBH Bombay gridcell series to historical data from Bombay or anywhere else, but it was somewhat similar to the series from Philadelphia.

In our Materials Complaint to Nature, we requested details on the provenance of these series. The answer in the Corrigendum was “NOAA” – nothing more. However the Corrigendum SI stubbornly retained the fiction that MBH98 proxy data included precipitation from New England and South Carolina and Bombay. I asked Nature for further particulars on the actual provenance of this data, but they refused to provide it. Maybe Juckes can resolve this conundrum. How about it, Marty? Where the hell do the MBH98 precipitation series actually come from?

This is an interesting illustration of the teleconnection principle. In Mannian statistics, incorrect geographical locations “don’t matter” because of teleconnections. Rain in Maine or rain in Spain – doesn’t matter, put them in the teleconnection machine. Assume that they are temperature plus noise. See – that was easy.

17 Comments

With the publication of Mann 2006, the teleconnection principle is clarified. The Mann group can now pick any proxy from anywhere and based on the teleconnection principle, they can claim that it represents the entire globe. Based on this breakthrough, if really does not matter whether a proxy comes from Bombay or Philadelphia.

Through the magic of de-teleconnection, they can also claim that certain proxies are only local. According to Mann 2006, all the proxies which might indicate the MWP or LIA or local to Europe.

Even though we keep hearing that the Team has “moved on”, tghe MBH98 network of “112” indicators, including the rain in Maine lives on. The new Mann article in EPSL refers to the 112 indicators saying:

For these reasons, an appropriate estimate of the SNR of multiproxy networks used in, for example, surface temperature field reconstruction should therefore not only consider the correlation of proxy data with annual or seasonal temperatures but also with measures of the large scale circulation (e.g., winter sea level pressure), which may better be recorded by the proxy. Based on this criterion, the average value for the Mann et al. (1998, henceforth MBH98) network of 112 indicators is r = 0.41 at annual timescales (and higher, at decadal and longer timescales) (Mann et al. 2006a).

Think about this for a moment. Isn’t it annoying that the review article is published before the article being reviewed is published – or, in the case of Zhang et al 2007(?) – before the article being reviewed is even written? Wouldn’t it be nice to see a listing of what “fields” these 112 proxies are correlated to? If the “rain in Maine” is correlated to Paris precipitation, would that prove the existence of a “climate field”? Or if “Bombay” precipitation is correlated to precipitation in Philadephia?

I wonder if the editors of EPSL will be willing to shed some light on where the rain in Maine comes from?

#6. Zhang et al. hasn’t even been written. What’s it doing in a “review” article?

I’m more than a bit cynical about Team check kiting. Jones and Mann 2004 cited Mann et al 2004, in review as authority to trash us. Mann et al 2004 was rejected, but the claim in Jones and Mann 2004 lives on. Wahl and Ammann 2006 (Clim Chg) relied on results from the twice-rejected Ammann and Wahl 2006 (it had already been rejected once) again as authority to trash us; these claims were then kited by Juckes. Wahl and Ammann misrepresented the status of their GRL rejection in initial correspondence with the editor of Clim Chg and an anonymous reviewer.

If Mann is writing a review article, there’s lots of stuff to review other than his own unpublished work.

The Hockey Team is always going on about the fact that only ‘peer-reviewed’ articles should be taken seriously. So interesting to see that on a current article on RC by Mann and Schmidt (A linkage between the LIA and Gulf Stream?), there are 3 reference links to Wikipedia! – the first as an example of ‘intense debate in the scientifc community’.

I was being a bit over-cynical in my previous comment. Its OK to reference non-peer reviewed articles – and press stories for that matter – as long as they are in line with the ‘scientific consensus’, and right.

Actually Connelley is an administrator on Wikipedia, and woe betide anyone who contradicts him on global warming or the Hockey Stick.

You want to see something funny? Connelley created the article “The Science is settled” by claiming that it was a “slogan” created by skeptics. What then happened was the number of quotations of scientists and politicians making that or an equivalent claim got longer and longer.

Connelley’s response? He banned my IP address for 3 hours for “trolling”, and deleted all of my changes from the discussion and the edit history, so it looked as though nothing had changed. When I tried to discuss why he was deleting history in defiance of Wikipedia’s own rules by writing to his talk page, he deleted those as well (another WP no-no) with a catty remark that “this wasn’t CA”. When I mentioned this on Wikipediareview.com, an admin from WP noticed and made Connelley undelete the history (although Connelley only undeleted half).

Then as the list got longer and longer and another editor noted that he had inserted “original research” that could not be verified and deleted that, Connelley signalled defeat by suggesting I mark the article “Article for Deletion”, and never touched the article again.

Connelley’s style is passive-aggressive and lots of editors have complained that he reverts articles with no reason given, and that he promotes an extremely narrow point of view (NPOV in Wikispeak), none of which is any surprise to readers of CA about the behavior of the Hockey Team.